In the final report of Click Online’s Africa season, we visit Kenya where a trial project using handheld computers could help reduce the costs of education in poor communities. In the Eduvision pilot project, textbooks are out, customised Pocket PCs, referred to as e-slates, are very much in. They are wi-fi enabled and run on licence-free open source software to keep costs down. Link.
…magnetic bracelet/choker from designer Terrence Kelleman. It’s entirely held together by magnetic force! This means that the 67 individual magnets are free to arrange and customize into a variety of design combinations and patterns. Not to mention that you can create both chokers and bracelets of varying lengths for a custom fit. I bet I could make my own as a cool present, but it’s kinda dangerous since everyone I know is laced with data. Link.
“LinuxDevices has profiled a new portable game- and media-player based on embedded Linux. The GPX2-F100 features dual ARM9 processors, USB 2.0, a 3.5-inch color LCD, and support for both native and emulated games. A Linux SDK (software development kit) will be available when the device ships. Hmmm… I wonder how hard it’ll be to get GPE and OPIE running on it?” [via] Link.
Lan Game Reviews has posted an article on how to use an old computer and FreeBSD distro m0n0wall to create a gaming router. Gaming routers allow users to use their full bandwidth for downloads and other high bandwidth apps, and low latency applications at the same time. By keeping packet queues on the router side, rather than the modem side. Users are able to achive great pings in online games, while fully using their download bandwidth. This is a great alternitive to expensive gaming routers on the market today.” [via] Link.
MAKE pal David Weekly posts about his Vonage experience, I’ve been hearing a lot of stories like this lately, I went Skype and Gizmo, haven’t looked back …there started to emerge some wierdnesses. Like how the ringing sound would keep playing a few seconds into an answered conversation or into the beginning of a voicemail greeting. Or how the router itself would reboot about once a day, sometimes requiring a full power cycle in order to start routing packets again. Or how incoming phone calls sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t, depending on the phase of the moon or something… Then he couldn’t cancel. Link.
This kid is the luckiest kid in the world, I don’t even have a MAKE poster. Or perhaps this is a very tiny kid, in a miniature house and this is a regular sized MAKE, then that kid is not so lucky. Link.
I’ve been meaning to post this for awhile, the folks from MakingThings have a whole bunch of new HOW TOs and project ideas for their Teleo product. What is Teleo? Teleo is a rapid-prototyping and development tool developed and marketed by MakingThings. It consists of a line of modular and networkable hardware components that can easily be connected to a computer via USB and programmed and controlled using any one of a number of programming languages. Components range from a variety of input and output modules, motor controller modules and accessories. Link. Also, check out the blocks.
